Monday, October 3, 2011

INFORMATION SHARING AND CAREER BEHAVIOUR OF LIBRARY PERSONNELt title

INTRODUCTION

Information
sharing refers to the processing of information either on a one-off or ongoing
basis between partners for the purpose of achieving a common aim.

Information sharing is the process of
exchanging data among various computer networks, usually operated by separate
organizations. Sharing
information can bring many benefits. It can support more efficient, easier toaccess
services. Library personnel can cooperate to deliver information to those with
complex needs.

There are two main sorts of information sharing. The first involves
two or more organizations sharing information between them. This could be done
by giving access to each other’s information systems or by setting up a
separate shared database. This may lead to the specific disclosure of a limited
amount of information on a one-off basis or the regular sharing of large
amounts of information, for example bulk matching name and address information
in two databases. The second involves the sharing of information between the
various parts of a single organization, for example between a local authority’s
various departments.

The goal of sharing information is to provide information to
others, either proactively or upon request, such that the information has an
impact on another person's (or persons') image of the world, i.e., it changes
the person's image of the world, and creates a shared, or mutually compatible
working, understanding of the world. Information sharing includes providing
information, confirming the information has been received, and confirming that
the information is jointly understood. Information sharing is an important
component of information behavior. It is an essential activity in all
collaborative work, and helps to bind groups and communities together. When
working together group, or team, members must continually provide information
to others and to some degree mutually understand and use information others
provide. When information is not effectively shared, collaborative group work
fails.

In information sharing
library personnel are well aware of their need to provide useful information to
others and their need to use information provided by others.

Effective
service provision relies on the organizations communicating and sharing
information with a wide range of partners. Information sharing is, therefore:

•
A two-way process that enables links to be made between people, objects,
locations and events that would not be possible otherwise;

•
Can help deliver improved public services;

•
Leads to an increased openness among partners which, in turn, builds
confidence and trust;

•
Increases expertise, professionalism and an understanding of the process
of sharing information;

•
Enables partners to make informed decisions about how best to protect
and serve the public.

However,
while there are clear advantages in sharing information with others,
information should not be shared purely as a matter of routine. Each case must
be viewed individually with informed decisions made about whether to share or
not.

The
sharing of information can be summarized in three distinct groups:

•
Those required by or under statute (statutory obligation)

•
Those permitted by or under statute (statutory power)

•
Those made under common law to support the delivery of services
including information sharing and dissemination

INFORMATION
STANDARDS

It
is good practice to check the quality of the information before it is shared,
otherwise inaccuracies and other problems will be spread across information
systems. In general, any plan to share information should trigger action to
make

sure
that inaccurate records are corrected, irrelevant ones weeded out, out of date
ones updated and so on. There should be mechanisms in place to help library
personnel to resolve problems where there is disagreement over an information
quality issue.

Library
personnel may share information in different ways. Before sharing information
you must make sure that the library personnel involved have a standard format
for information sharing. If you cannot establish a common standard for sharing
information, you must develop a reliable means of converting the information.

Only
once you have a clearly defined objective, for example the delivery of a
particular service, can you make an informed decision about the information
that is necessary to carry out that objective. You should be able to justify
the sharing of each item of information on the grounds that its sharing is
necessary to achieve the objective. You must not share information if it is not
necessary to do so. It is good practice to regularly review the information
sharing and to check that all the information being shared is necessary for
achieving your objective

It
is good practice to check from time to time whether the information being
shared is of good enough quality.

The
spreading of inaccurate information across a network can cause significant
problems for information professionals. If you discover that you have shared
inaccurate information, you should not only correct your own records but make
sure that the information is also corrected by others holding it.

Information shall be adequate, relevant, not excessive, accurate
and up to date.

·A procedure for checking that information is of good
enough quality before it is shared.

· Methods for
making sure that shared information is recorded in a compatible format.

·Procedures for making sure that any information that
is being shared is relevant and not excessive.

·Methods for checking regularly that shared information
is of sufficient quality.

RETENTION OF SHARED
INFORMATION

Automated
systems can be used to delete a specific piece of information after a
pre-determined period. This facility is particularly useful where a large
number of information of the same type are held.

Considerations
for judging retention periods include:

·the current and future value of the information for the purpose for
which it is held;

·the costs, risks and liabilities associated with retaining the
information; and

·the ease or difficulty of making sure the information remains
accurate and up to date.

You
should review your retention policy in the light of operational experience. If

information
that are being retained are not being used, this would call into question the
need to retain them. It can be very difficult to assess the significance of the
information you hold. In these cases you must rely on experience and

professional
expertise to come to a balanced decision about whether to retain or

delete
the information

There
is a significant difference between permanently, irreversibly deleting
information and merely archiving it. If you merely archive a record or store it
‘off-line’ it must still be necessary to hold it and you must be prepared to
give subject

access
to it.

Library
personnel sharing information should have an agreement about

what
should happen once the need to share the information has passed. In some

cases
the best course of action might be to return the shared information to the

personnel
that supplied it without retaining a copy. In other cases, for example

where
the particular issue that the information sharing was intended to deal

with
has been resolved, all personnel involved should delete their copies

of
the information.

REVIEW

It is very important to regularly assess whether your sharing of
information is having the desired effect, for example in terms providing a more
efficient service to the public. When assessing your information sharing it is
also important to consider any complaints or questions that you have received
from members of the public. You should keep your information sharing procedures
under review, and should update your documents when necessary.

Information sharing is key to the library
personnel’s goal of delivering better, more efficient services that are
coordinated around the needs of the user. Library personnel recognize the
importance of information sharing and there is already much good practice.

HOW ORGANIZATIONS CAN SUPPORT PRACTITIONERS

It describes the important organizational
and cultural aspects that are required to ensure that good practice in
information sharing is promoted and supported.

Organizational Support

Practitioners need to understand their
organization’s position and commitment to information sharing. They need to
have confidence in the continued support of their organization where they have
used their professional judgement and shared information professionally.

To give practitioners confidence to apply
the support in practice; it is important that their employers aim to establish:

• a culture that supports information
sharing between and within organizations including proactive mechanisms for
identifying and resolving potential issues and opportunities for reflective
practice;

• a systematic approach within their agency
to explain to service users when the service is first accessed, how and why
information may be shared, and the standards that will be adopted, which will
help to build the confidence of all involved;

• Clear systems, standards and procedures
for sharing information. These may be derive from the organization’s
information sharing governance

any local procedures in place, or from
their professional code of conduct;

• infrastructure and systems to support
secure information sharing, for example, access to secure email or online
information systems;

• Effective supervision and support in
developing practitioners’ and managers’ professional judgement in making these
decisions. For example, access to training where practitioners can discuss
issues which concern them and explore case examples with other practitioners;
and specific training and support for managers and advisors who provide support
to practitioners in making information sharing decisions;

• Mechanisms for monitoring and auditing
information sharing practice; and

• A designated source of impartial advice
and support on information sharing issues, and for resolution of any conflicts
about information sharing.

INFORMATION SHARING GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORKS

It
is good practice to establish an information sharing governance framework so
that all library personnel/information professional are clear about the organization’s
position on information sharing.

Information sharing governance framework
must always recognize the importance of professional judgement in information
sharing at the front-line and should focus on how to improve practice in
information sharing within and between agencies. These should be communicated
to the front-line so that practitioners have confidence in their organization’s
commitment and support for professional information sharing.

An information governance framework would
be expected to include:

• An Information Sharing Code of Practice,
which outlines the principles and standards of expected
conduct and practice of the organization and the staff within the organization.
The Code of Practice establishes the organization’s intentions and commitment
to information sharing

• Information Sharing Procedures, which
describe the chronological steps and considerations required after a decision
to share information has been made, for example, the steps to be taken to
ensure that information is shared. Information sharing procedures set out, in
detail, good practice in sharing information.

• Information Sharing Protocols (ISP).
Where the organization is involved in pre-specified, regular or bulk sharing of
personal information with other organizations then the framework would also be
expected to include one or more Information Sharing Protocols. An ISP is a
signed agreement between two or more organizations or bodies, in relation to
specified information sharing activity. An ISP relates to a specific information
sharing activity and explains the terms under which both (or all) organizations
have agreed to share information and the practical steps that need to be taken
to ensure compliance with those terms.

SHARING
AND COLLABORATION

Sharing
and collaboration are more dependent on people than technology. ICT has also
greatly facilitated information sharing and collaborative working. Cost of
sharing and distribution of information is low and negligible in digital
environment. But sharing is a complex human process subjected to psychology of
individual and his professional and cultural predisposition.

Extensive
sharing of information and collaboration are ok. Hither to popular
‘technological gatekeepers’, ‘communication stars’ and ‘invisible colleges’ are
losing ground and yet another kind of disintermediation; beyond ICT and
libraries social sharing is negligible. The forces and objectives behind
information sharing among libraries and library consortia include: unutilized
spare capacity of resources, optimum utilization of resource; budgetary crunch;
and duplication.

In
view of content boom (Web pages double every three months), enormous unutilized
capacity of resources and duplication as well as huge additional expenditure
incurred by agencies centrally paying towards consortia subscriptions It is
difficult to say that the objective behind information sharing have been better
achieved in the new digital environment. Though ICT has enabled information
sharing and collaborative working, the collaborative evaluation of the content
in the Internet has become a marketing tool. Amazon uses evaluation and views
of customers to rate books and present to others to further its commercial
interest. Imitating collaborative evaluation on Web, personalizing contents and
product customization based on usage and observed user behaviour are being
attempted. What information management community requires is that technology
learns users’ likes and dislikes over time in order to dynamically and
consistently deliver the right content.

INFORMATION SHARING ACTIVITIES

Information
sharing is seen as a mode of operations whereby, functions are shared in common
by a number of participants having the same objective.

Some
of the activities aimed at information sharing:

Inter lending/Document Delivery

Inter
library lending is one of the earliest schemes developed by library personnel
in their bid to share information. There are two types of inter lending- the
decentralized and centralized schemes. The centralized inter lending scheme is
a situation where there is a centralized collection specifically for inter
lending. The central has established enormous collection capable of meeting
efficient information retrieval and delivery.

Networking

The
impact of the computer revolution and the utilization of modern
telecommunication in information storage and delivery has greatly facilitated
and broadened the scope for information sharing. Banks of specialist
information and machine readable bibliographic data available to, or being used,
thus crating unprecedented opportunities for online sharing of information and
bibliographic services.

An
advance in information and communication technology has really enhanced the way
information sharing operates. Among the developments are the e-mail, the
internet, full text bibliographical services, e-journals, CD-ROM technology
etc.

Consortium

Consortium
is the cooperative arrangement between several libraries for the purpose of
cooperative acquisition of materials, cooperative cataloguing and
classification of materials so acquired.

CAREER BEHAVIOR

Frank Parsons’s s tripartite
model is considered to be the forerunner of modern theories of career
behaviour. His model suggests a person should:

(1)understand one’s self,

(2) understand job requirements,

(3) choose a career that is based
upon knowledge and logic.

CAREER
BEHAVIOUR THEORIES

Trait
and Factor Theories

Stress the individual’s need to develop his or
her “traits, (interests, values, skills) as well as select environments that
compliment those traits.

An
Example of a Trait and Factor Theory

Holland’s
Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments

•An individual’s personality is the
primary consideration in their choice of vocation.

•Other factors influence career
behaviour: Discrimination, economic
variables, and the culture of the person doing the hiring as well as chance
happenings.

•People who have high self-efficacy
and high ability perform higher in educational and career endeavors then those
who do not.

Modernist
Theories posit that:

•Human behavior can be measured objectively if instruments are
reliable and valid.

•Human behavior can be studied without direct observation.

•Research should be without bias or value imposition.

•Research, if done scientifically, can be generalized to people beyond
those studied.

•Research should be empirically validated.

Post-Modernist
Theories posit that:

•Human behavior cannot be studied objectively.

•Cause and effect relationships cannot be determined.

•Human behavior can only be studied through direct observation.

• Research data cannot be
generalized.

•Research cannot be value free.

•Narratives are legitimate sources of data.

•Research should be goal free.

•Career counselors should use qualitative research and assessments.

CONCLUSION

Library
personnel dream is to serve its users. User demands are increasing at an
exponent rate against limited resources at the disposal of library personnel.
For library personnel to still be relevant in the scheme of things, a lot of
information sharing activities are going on among information professionals.

Information
sharing is globally endorsed as it tends to result in harmony and progress.
Information sharing has a significant role to play given the problem of scarce
resources with regards to human, material and financial aspect.

Library
personnel are service providers, thus users satisfaction is always a point of
consideration. For library personnel to satisfy users needs, it has to store
all the information product and services that the user will likely demand and
in varying formats.